Mexican Journalist Covering Crime Killed by Gunmen
Alejandro Martínez Noguez, a Mexican journalist known for covering one of the country’s most perilous crime beats, was killed by gunmen on Sunday.
The incident occurred when attackers in a pickup truck opened fire with long guns at a car assigned to Martínez and his team of bodyguards by the city government. Martínez, in his fifties, was shot in the head, and two of his government-assigned bodyguards were wounded and are receiving treatment.
Martínez’s news site focused on community news and crime in Celaya, a city notorious for being the most dangerous for police officers in Mexico. His recent reports included arrests for crimes such as attempted murder, sexual exploitation, and homicide, featuring headshots of individuals described as leaders of “criminal cells.”
Hours before the attack, Martínez had covered a fatal car accident on a dangerous stretch of highway, posting a 20-minute video about the incident on his news site’s Facebook page, which has around 344,000 followers.
Prosecutors in the north-central state of Guanajuato have launched an investigation into his killing.
In 2022, Martínez survived a shooting and had been assigned police protection under a federal program for reporters receiving death threats.